


Anger as a Verb

by leviathanchronicles



Series: Danganronpa Character Studies [5]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lots of other characters are mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 08:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19373221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathanchronicles/pseuds/leviathanchronicles
Summary: God knows I could make amends, but I've got an angry heart.





	Anger as a Verb

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. as always, this takes place in the levi cinematic universe, which is to say that i have an awful memory, so i just cram together different bits of the franchise into whatever i want. if something is inaccurate, that's why.  
> 2\. despite wanting to write stuff for toko for months now, i am terrified of writing her. i tried to reach to balance her dr1 and dg personalities yfm...i won't ramble about that here but please know that i did my best  
> 3\. the title and summary are references to the song "brave as a noun" by ajj !

No one at Future Foundation was thinking about the long term when they begin saving the loved ones in Towa City. When survival is all you’ve come to know, the little things get overshadowed--save them. Bring them home. Handle the gross bits, the parts where you tell them  _ “I’m sorry, but they didn’t make it _ ” after all of that is worked out. Better yet, let someone else tell them. 

It’s easy, really, when your only interaction with these people is supposed to be making sure they aren’t dead and sending them on their way. No one is meant to be hanging out in the city, guiding people to safe places, listening to their questions about  _ my son, my friend, my brother.  _ And yet here Toko is. 

It makes her angry. Oh, it makes her angry--why is she the one to carry this? Her, emotionally stunted girl--when every other survivor would be better suited to it. Makoto, with his gentle eyes and the ability to make the worst news feel bearable; Byakuya, who would have no reason to dance around the subject; Kyouko, who wouldn’t be overwhelmed the way Toko is. Even, she begrudgingly admits, the other two--Aoi did her best to comfort others (even Toko--she knows this) during the game, and Yasuhiro probably wouldn’t spend enough time thinking about it to overthink.

But no, it falls on her. She came to Towa City for one reason, and she stayed for one different reason, and neither of those reasons involve becoming a grief counselor. Yet here she is, the only one who can tell the people here what became of their loved ones. The only one who knows. 

The thing is, she doesn’t care about these people. None of them know her, and if they did, she knows they’d leave her alone, they’d stop talking to her about their lives and the people they lost. They’d know better than to expect any kind of sympathy from her. It should be easy for her to destroy their lives. It shouldn’t hurt.

What makes her angriest of all is that it does. 

Toko is sharp and cold and angry. Toko survived something no one should ever have to survive, and then she got thrown into a killing game and survived that, too, and now she’s in this stupid, stupid city, and she’s going to survive this, too, thank you very much. She’s weak, and she can’t fight, and she has next to nothing to live for, but she’s got the kind of rage that powers cities, and she’ll be damned if this is what takes her out. Anger keeps her fighting when there’s nothing else to fight for.

Toko is ten years old when she pulls down her thesaurus and flips to the word “Angry” and writes down every single word. She lets them roll over her tongue, scrawls the exact definition so she can be sure every connotation is correct. She listens to thunder outside--sometimes, real life is more poetic than anything she could ever write. 

Toko does not write angry stories. Her characters do not fume (feel, show, or express great anger) except out of love; every stroppy ( bad-tempered and argumentative) girl finds peace at the end; nobody is  _ foaming at the mouth, steamed up, in a lather, in a paddy, fit to be tied _ , or any of the other phrases that she copies down from webpages and other stories, all these words.

But Toko is all of those things, all of them, and they flip through her head in a jukebox pattern every time something happens. Her dad stays out for three days in a row (wrathful), her moms scream about who’s fault it is this time (irate). She wakes up alone in a dark closet (frenzied). She wakes up alone in a parking garage (enraged).

She wakes up alone in a classroom.

And Toko survived all of it. And she didn’t get a lick of sympathy for it, either. She took it, because that’s what her life is. She’s supposed to care about these people for going through a fraction of what she did? She’s supposed to pity them for losing someone? She never even had anyone to lose. She thinks about the sheer nerve of these people, sitting around bemoaning their lives, and she tells herself that she’ll have no problem telling them the truth. Let them be overwhelmed, too--maybe then, they’ll actually do something.

Then Taichi Fujisaki says that he has to live for his family, and Toko looks at him and can’t even form the vague bits of pain into a sentence worth saying. She keeps quiet. And later, she’s certain she made the right choice. It isn’t like he’s going to live to know the difference. 

So why does she feel so conflicted when Komaru brings it up later?

They find the Hit List entry for Kanon Nakajima, and this makes Toko angry, too. She didn’t care about Leon. Maybe she didn’t hate him, not yet, but his death was nothing personal. And she can tell just by looking that she wouldn’t like Kanon, either. And Toko is nothing if not vindictive--if she doesn’t like you (and she doesn’t like most people), she isn’t going to be kind to you.

But she stares at the picture longer than she needs to. Under the makeup, Kanon looks kind of like Leon. Leon, who was executed in such a violent way Toko still sometimes catches glimpses of it when she wakes up. And Kanon actually cared about him.

What’s more painful? Toko asks herself this a thousand times over. Would it be better to let Kanon believe he’s out there, and she just needs to escape to see him again--or is that unfair? Oh, but if Toko tells her Leon’s dead, she’ll want to know how, why, what, and those are questions Toko doesn’t want to answer.

Eventually, the question changes from  _ what’s more painful?  _ to  _ what’s more merciful? _

Toko woke up alone in a classroom. And no matter what she tells herself, her initial response was never anger. 

She wakes up alone in a classroom (distress); she watches everyone around her die (horror); she walks outside into a destroyed world (fear, fear, fear). 

Anger is what kept her alive, but fear is what kept her fighting. 

She doesn’t tell anyone. Every time, she tries to. She wants to. It seems so unfair not to, but Toko is a selfish person. Toko doesn’t want to watch their faces crumple, doesn’t want to watch reality set in. By the time Future Foundation returns to extract the hostages, Toko knows them well enough to see family resemblances, speaking patterns--Toko knows their stories and how intimately intertwined they are with her own. Toko can’t get away with telling herself that none of this really matters.

* * *

Back at headquarters, she’s eating her first real meal in ages while checks are placed next to every person (bodies, too) found. She sees Aoi bouncing on her heels, waiting for an answer, her face getting gradually more nervous. Komaru is better at these things, more emotionally inclined, and best of all, she knows about this one. Toko can, should, let her take it. 

But Toko knows about this one, too, and Toko is thinking about the people she didn’t tell, the ones she left in the dark. The ones who are about to have their world pulled out from under them for at least the second time.

And Toko has experience with crumbling foundations. She didn’t cry when she realized her moms were dead, she didn’t even care, not really, but--but no one was there for her the first few times her life was ruined. And people were there the last few times, and it made a difference, even if that difference was only having a hand to hold. Being angry saved her life, but it didn’t keep her alive.

She walks over to Aoi while picking at her cuticles. It hurts to make eye contact, to keep from dipping her chin. But she’s gotten better at comforting people; she knows how to hold someone steady. She knows how to hold herself steady, now. 

“Asahina. Can we talk?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> as always i adore commentary, ideas, etc, and if you liked this, i'd encourage you to check out my other dr character studies! thank you for reading <3


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